He knew that voice. He'd heard it on news clips of Justin Gray's trial, which had been playing on the local news all night.
Lewinsky and Banner had reached him. "Who is it?" Lewinsky asked softly.
Hammond cupped the phone with his hand. "Gray."
Banner blinked. "You're shitting me."
"Yeah, that's right, Phil. April fool." Hammond checked the phone's LCD readout. "Brand's got caller ID. We can find out who placed this call."
Lewinsky had his pad out. "Give me the number. I'll do it."
Hammond listened again as Lewinsky moved away to use his cell phone, but now the only sounds on the line were distant, indecipherable noises. He heard a new voice raised in a shout. A female voice.
"Someone's with him," Hammond said. "A woman."
Banner shook his head. "Another victim. This is getting better and better."
Hammond turned to him. "You just don't fucking get it, do you? This is our break. We trace the call and we know where he is. Right now, in real time."
"Brand's still dead," Banner said morosely. "It's still a royal fuckup."
"Brand died in the performance of his duties. He's a goddamn hero. He led us directly to the whereabouts of the city's most wanted man and saved untold lives. Jesus, Phil, get with the program."
Lewinsky finished his call. "The call is being made from a cell phoneand it's assigned to Robin Cameron."
Hammond stared at him. "The shrink? Jesus."
"Maybe she's the one he's got with him," Banner said.
"Thanks, Phil, that never would've occurred to me." Hammond looked at Lewinsky. "Can we trace the call?"
"To the nearest transmission tower."
"We need a warrant?"
"Not if her service provider will cooperate. I've got RHD working it now. They'll call me when they get anything."
Hammond motioned to Banner. "Go tell these A-cars to get ready to rumble. We get a fix on this location, we're rolling."
Banner shifted his stance nervously. "Isn't that someone else's job? I mean, we're admin. Not, you know amp;"
"Not real cops? We're real cops tonight."
Banner, looking unhappy, headed toward the squad cars. Lewinsky's phone chirped. He answered, making brief affirmative noises and scribbling on his pad.
"RHD came through," he said to Hammond. "The call's being routed through a cell tower at South Central Avenue and Fourteenth Street. That's only a few blocks north of the freeway."
"The old commercial district," Hammond said. "Factories and warehouses."
"Right. Five minutes from here. We good to go?"
Hammond hesitated only a moment. "Let's do it. Let's nail this son of a bitch."
Chapter Fifty-nine
"I never understood.'" Gray mimicked her, his voice raised in a falsetto. "You bet you didn't. You never got me at all."
He chuckled, an ugly sound.
"All that shit about my daddy burning me and belting mefuck, yeah, he did, 'cause I was always shoplifting and setting fires and ripping off his cash. Okay, he wasn't no A-one parent. And my mama was a dumb ugly cow who never opened her mouth 'cept to stuff it with cheeseburgers and fries. They were a pair of low cards I drew, but fuck it all, I still don't blame them for the way I turned out. You're the one who's into the blame game. Me, I know my childhood sucked, and now I get to make other people's lives suck. Seems fair, don't it? What goes around, comes around. And now it's coming around to you, Doc. You and Meg."
Robin pulled Meg closer. "Don't do this, Justin, please."
"You don't tell me what to do, Doc-aroo. I'm the one running this show."
"Take me if you want, but not Meg"
"Shut up."
"Please, not Meg"
"I said, shut the fuck up!"
He struck her hard across the face, a ringing blow that sent her reeling backward into one of the old crates strewn on the floor. She fell on it, and the crate shattered, throwing up white whorls of dust.
In the passenger seat of his sedan, Hammond was on the dashboard radio.
"We're code two to the scene. Request Air Support at Central Avenue and Fourteenth. Have reason to believe the fugitive Justin Gray is in the vicinity. Tell ASTRO to look for a green late-model Volkswagen. Hold on." He turned to Lewinsky in the backseat. "How big a coverage area for the cell tower?"
"An urban sector's maybe one or two city blocks, that's all."
He spoke into the microphone again. "We're looking at a radius of one to two blocks."
"Roger that," the dispatcher said. "Air Fourteen en route, ETA two minutes."
"They'll beat us there," the driver said.
Hammond nodded. "But not by much."
Robin's head echoed with the punch. She tasted blood in her mouth. Her tongue seemed large and unwieldy.
She made an effort to rise, but fell down, coughing on dust and wood splinters.
Meg was screaming. Gray seized her by the hair and hauled her to the center of the room, where the two conveyor belts stood side by side under the skylight. He lifted Meg and flung her down on the nearest conveyor belt. The impact stunned her into silence. She lay on her back atop the rusted mechanism, the stars glowing down on her. She looked, Robin thought wearily, like a sacrifice on an altar.
"I been in stir a year without a taste of pussy," Gray said. "Got me a hard-on like a Louisville slugger, and it's all for you."
"Chief Hammond, Air Fourteen on tac one."
Hammond switched to the tactical frequency and heard the voice of the airship's observer.
"Air Fourteen. We have a visual on the Volkswagen. Parked in an alley in back of a large industrial site at Central and Pico. Second vehicle at the same locationone of ours, a slickback." Slickback was LAPD slang for a black-and-white police vehicle without roof lights. "No signs of occupancy in either car."
"A slickback?" Lewinsky said from the backseat. "Whose is it?"
It was easy enough to identify the car from the air. The last three digits of the shop number were stenciled on the roof, and the division number was similarly displayed on the trunk. But Hammond wasn't worried about the slickback at the moment.
"Forget the LAPD car for now, Air Fourteen. We're looking for a Caucasian male on foot. He's wearing a denim jacket and tan or brown pants." The carjack victim had given the description to the first patrol officers on the scene.
"Air Fourteen, roger. No visual on suspect. There's a means of ingress to the factory groundsan open gate."
"Gray could be inside the building," Banner said, master of the obvious.
Hammond turned to the driver. "Bring us around to the back alley. We're going in." He switched from the tac frequency to the main comm channel. "This is Hammond, requesting Central Area patrol units as backup."
The dispatcher rogered him.
"We wait for the backup, right?" Banner asked nervously.
"No, we don't." As the car swung off the freeway onto Central Avenue, Hammond drew the pistol from his belt holster. It had never been fired on the job. "Lock and load, gentlemen."
While Robin watched, Gray thrust the gun into his waistband, then climbed onto the conveyor belt. He straddled Meg, who lay unmoving, frozen by shock.
"Don't act like you never had none before," Gray said. "I told your mommy you ain't no virgin. Your cherry's been popped good. Am I right?"
From Meg, a whimper. "Yes."
Gray glanced across the room, meeting Robin's eyes with a smile of triumph. "Told you so. Your baby girl's a whore. Well, I know how to treat a whore." He unzipped his pants. "You're gonna like this, sweet thing."